


Abduction

by Gelsey



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-12
Updated: 2012-04-12
Packaged: 2017-11-03 13:17:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/381749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gelsey/pseuds/Gelsey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some things piss Snape off more than others, but negligent mothers get him every time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Abduction

The normally peaceful grounds of Hogwarts had been turned into a nightmare. Snape had expected it, but that didn’t make it any more acceptable for this haven to be invaded.

He slunk across the grass, shadow to shadow. The Mark on his arm called him to the Dark Lord, and he meant to answer—eventually. It wasn’t like he could Apparate, though many of the other wards were down at this point. 

He tried to stay out of the fighting as much as he could. After all, he couldn’t be seen fighting for the Order, but he couldn’t bring himself to help the Death Eaters, either. It was hard, painfully so, to keep from being involved, but he had a task he still had to do.

A flash of bubblegum pink in his peripheral shocked him. Merlin and Nimue and their invisible evil twins, did the girl have no sense! She had a baby at home, a little boy who depended on her for everything!

Idiotic Hufflepuff.

He darted out of a shadow, snarled at the Death Eater he passed. “She’s mine!” He barreled forward, casting a strong shielding charm to keep Tonks’ spells from hitting him. She was good, he’d grant her that, but he’d surprised her.

His arms encircled her, pinning her arms to her sides, and the momentum of his strike spun them around in a circle.

_Well, now what, genius?_ he thought sarcastically. Before he could think too much about it, though, he twisted the only ring he wore, appropriately a serpent, and the hooked-navel feeling grabbed them both and whisked them far away.

He swore the moment they swayed to a halt in the narrow hall of Spinner’s End. He’d just used his only Portkey—the one-time-only get-away Portkey. “See what you’ve bloody made me do,” he hissed, wrenching her wand from her hand and pushing her away, sending her thumping into the wall.

“What the hell, Snape! Whatcha think you’re doing, abducting me from the bloody battlefield!” Tonks’ hair rippled with violent red and black, evidence of her fury. “I have to get back there!”

Her eyes half-closed, evidence of concentration for Apparition, but he grabbed her again, shaking her and bouncing her back against the wall. “You are such an idiot,” he told her, getting in her face, forcing her to concentrate on him instead of getting out of there. “What were you doing there? You have a child! Your place isn’t at the battle!”

Her hands pounded on his shoulders, and she twisted her hips, struggling to get leverage enough to use her Auror training. Snape, though, thwarted that and an attempt to knee him in the groin, ending up pressing her against the wall in such a way she wouldn’t get such a chance again. “Why do you even care, traitor?” she hissed into his ear before trying to bite it.

“Why don’t _you_ care?” he countered. “He’s your little boy! If something happens to you, he won’t have anyone but that good-for-nothing werewolf!”

A sound of inarticulate rage made his ear ring. “You leave Remus out of this!” she shouted, redoubling her struggles. “He’s a good man!”

“He’s a coward who had to be shamed by an impulsive teenaged boy into coming back to you and your baby!” Her eyes widened not in surprise at the news but at surprise that he knew it. Her struggles weakened and stopped as she gaped at him. “Think of that baby! The next time your husband leaves because he can’t take it? What will happen to your little boy then?” His voice scolded, cajoled, fell up and down the range and cadence.

“Why do you care?” Tonks—he couldn’t think of her as anything other than the name she’d used so long—asked again, this time softly. She seemed at a complete loss as to what to think.

Snape’s dark eyes flashed with some fleeting emotion, an old echo of long ago times. Emotional pain, she might have said, except they flashed again and his left hand tightened convulsively around her wrist. He shifted her so both hands were above her head, held by his right hand. She didn’t try to yank free—this time. “Fuck,” he muttered, slapping his hand palm first against the plaster of the hall wall. The Mark called with its intense throb. 

He ignored it, for now. “I care,” he said, putting his face directly in front of hers and speaking in a low, sibilant voice, “because if you die, if you both die, your little boy will always wonder why.”

“I fight for him,” Tonks declared passionately. “If I die, it will be so he has a better life! He’ll know that!”

Snape snorted derisively. “It’s easy to die, woman. You don’t have to suffer the consequences of your actions then. Sure, he’ll know.” _Slap_ , damn that hurt, the wall was hard. “And he’ll probably even be proud, proud his parents _died_ for the _greater good_.”

Greater good, greater good… was Harry going to die for the ‘greater good,’ after he’d worked so hard to protect him?

“But part of that little boy you love so much will always wonder why you didn’t stay with him. Wasn’t he _important_ ,” _Slap_ , “enough to stay with? Wasn’t he _important enough_ to live for? It’s hard,” _slap slap_ , his hand was stinging and covered in a light coat of plaster dust, “to live, but if you should live for anything, live for him.”

The Mark called insistently, the eternal siren wail, the never-ending call of damnation. He couldn’t, shouldn’t, deny it much longer. He had to go, or all would be lost. He must help Harry, he must redeem Lily’s death.

But damn it, this woman was annoying him. Another mother putting her life on the line without good cause. How many more? How much more blood?

He pushed away from her, finally releasing her. He stalked with purposeful steps toward the front door—his wards would not allow Apparition in or out, either. And he had to get back _now_.

“You can’t know that!” she shouted at his back. Indecision, desperation to understand, it was all there in her voice.

He hesitated, a short second at the doorway. “I can,” he said so softly she almost couldn’t hear. “I still wonder why she didn’t live for me.”

Snape left her there, leaning weakly against a wall of his childhood home, seeming in that moment too much like his own mother. But maybe this one wouldn’t give up.

He would never know. He had to get back.

**Author's Note:**

> Can be taken as canon-compliant or AU--make your choice. Written for redvelvetcanopy on LJ.


End file.
